There are a variety of closures which have been developed and which have an attached lid or lids which can be opened to provide access to the container on which the closure is mounted. In some instances, the user may wish to have some means by which the lid can be held in the open position. In some conventional closures a snap-action hinge is provided to connect the lid to the closure body for holding the lid in the open position.
Although snap-action hinges, as well as other structures for holding a lid open, may generally function well, it would be desirable in some applications to provide an improved mechanism by which the lid may be held open.
It would be especially advantageous to provide an improved means by which the lid could be held open in an orientation approximately 120.degree. from the closed orientation to allow access to the container contents.
It would also be desirable to provide a structure for holding a lid in an open orientation wherein the structure would maximize the amount of open space on the top surface of the closure as well as maximize the area on the closure available for dispensing the container contents.
Finally, in some applications, it would be desirable if such an improved structure for holding a lid open could be fabricated in a closure having a separate cover or lid structure that could be releasably mounted on the closure body. This would permit the cover or lid structure to be molded from thermoplastic material separately from the closure body. Such a closure could accommodate a variety of different designs and colors in the separate components. It would also permit such separate components to be more easily manufactured.